Full dark,no stars (23 page)

Here was a sign at the side of the road. Tess read it easily enough in the moonlight:

You like Colewich, it likes you, she whispered.

She knew the town, which the locals pronounced Collitch. It was actually a small city, one of many in New England that had been prosperous back in the textile-mill days and continued to struggle along somehow in the new free-trade era, when Americas pants and jackets were made in Asia or Central America, probably by children who couldnt read or write. She was on the outskirts, but surely she could walk to a phone.

Then what?

Then she would would

Call a limousine, she said. The idea burst on her like a sunrise. Yes, that was exactly what shed do. If this was Colewich, then her own Connecticut town was thirty miles away, maybe less. The limo service she used when she wanted to go to Bradley International or into Hartford or New York (Tess did not do city driving if she could help it) was based in the neighboring town of Woodfield. Royal Limousine boasted round-the-clock service. Even better, they would have her credit card on file.

Tess felt better and began to walk a little faster. Then headlights brightened the road and she once more hurried into the bushes and crouched down, as terrified as any hunted thing: doe fox rabbit. This vehicle was a truck, and she began to tremble. She went on trembling even when she saw it was a little white Toyota, nothing at all like the giants old Ford. When it was gone, she tried to force herself to walk back to the road, but at first she couldnt. She was crying again, the tears warm on her chilly face. She felt herself getting ready to step out of the spotlight of awareness once more. She couldnt let that happen. If she allowed herself to go into that waking blackness too many times, she might eventually lose her way back.

She made herself think of thanking the limo driver and adding a tip to the credit card form before making her way slowly up the flower-lined walk to her front door. Tilting up her mailbox and taking the extra key from the hook behind it. Listening to Fritzy meow anxiously.

The thought of Fritzy turned the trick. She worked her way out of the bushes and resumed walking, ready to dart back into cover the second she saw more headlights. The very second. Because he was out there somewhere. She realized that from now on he would always be out there. Unless the police caught him, that was, and put him in jail. But for that to occur she would have to report what had happened, and the moment this idea came into her mind, she saw a glaring black New York Post -style headline:

Tabloids like the Post would undoubtedly run a picture of her from ten years ago, when her first Knitting Society book had been published. Back then shed been in her late twenties, with long dark blond hair cascading down her back and good legs she liked to showcase in short skirts. Plus-in the evening-the kind of high-heeled sling-backs some men (the giant for one, almost certainly) referred to as fuck-me shoes. They wouldnt mention that she was now ten years older, twenty pounds heavier, and had been dressed in sensible-almost dowdy-business attire when she was assaulted; those details didnt fit the kind of story the tabloids liked to tell. The copy would be respectful enough (if panting a trifle between the lines), but the picture of her old self would tell the real story, one that probably pre-dated the invention of the wheel: She asked for it and she got it.

Was that realistic, or only her shame and badly battered sense of self-worth imagining the worst-case scenario? The part of her that might want to go on hiding in the bushes even if she managed to get off this awful road and out of this awful state of Massachusetts and back to her safe little house in Stoke Village? She didnt know, and guessed that the true answer lay somewhere in between. One thing she did know was that she would get the sort of nationwide coverage every writer would like when she publishes a book and no writer wants when she has been raped and robbed and left for dead. She could visualize someone raising a hand during Question Time and asking, Did you in any way encourage him?

That was ridiculous, and even in her current state Tess knew it but she also knew that if this came out, someone would raise his or her hand to ask, Are you going to write about this?

And what would she say? What could she say?

Nothing, Tess thought. I would run off the stage with my hands over my ears.

But no.

No no no.

The truth was she wouldnt be there in the first place. How could she ever do another reading, lecture, or autographing, knowing that he might turn up, smiling at her from the back row? Smiling from beneath that weird brown cap with the bleach spots on it? Maybe with her earrings in his pocket. Fondling them.

The thought of telling the police made her skin burn, and she could feel her face literally wincing in shame, even out here, alone in the dark. Maybe she wasnt Sue Grafton or Janet Evanovich, but neither was she, strictly speaking, a private person. She would even be on CNN for a day or two. The world would know a crazy, grinning giant had shot his load inside of the Willow Grove Scribe. Even the fact that he had taken her underwear as a souvenir might come out. CNN wouldnt report that part, but The National Enquirer or Inside View would have no such compunctions.

Sources inside the investigation say they found a pair of the Scribes panties in the accused rapists drawer: blue Victorias Secret hip-huggers, trimmed with lace.

I cant tell, she said. I wont tell.

But there were others before you, there could be others after y-

She pushed this thought away. She was too tired to consider what might or might not be her moral responsibility. Shed work on that part later, if God meant to grant her a later and it seemed He might. But not on this deserted road where any set of approaching lights might have her rapist behind it.

Hers. He was hers now. 13 -

A mile or so after passing the Colewich sign, Tess began to hear a low, rhythmic thudding that seemed to come up from the road through her feet. Her first thought was of H. G. Wellss mutant Morlocks, tending their machinery deep in the bowels of the earth, but another five minutes clarified the sound. It was coming through the air, not from the ground, and it was one she knew: the heartbeat of a bass guitar. The rest of the band coalesced around it as she walked. She began to see light on the horizon, not headlights but the white of arc sodiums and the red gleam of neon. The band was playing Mustang Sally, and she could hear laughter. It was drunken and beautiful, punctuated by happy party-down whoops. The sound made her feel like crying some more.

The roadhouse, a big old honkytonk barn with a huge dirt parking lot that looked full to capacity, was called The Stagger Inn. She stood at the edge of the glare cast by the parking lot lights, frowning. Why so many cars? Then she remembered it was Friday night. Apparently The Stagger Inn was the place to go on Friday nights if you were from Colewich or any of the surrounding towns. They would have a phone, but there were too many people. They would see her bruised face and leaning nose. They would want to know what had happened to her, and she was in no shape to make up a story. At least not yet. Even a pay phone outside was no good, because she could see people out there, too. Lots of them. Of course. These days you had to go outside if you wanted to smoke a cigarette. Also

He could be there. Hadnt he been capering around her at one point, singing a Rolling Stones song in his awful tuneless voice? Tess supposed she might have dreamed that part-or hallucinated it-but she didnt think so. Wasnt it possible that after hiding her car, hed come right here to The Stagger Inn, pipes all cleaned and ready to party the night away?

The band launched into a perfectly adequate cover of an old Cramps song: Can Your Pussy Do the Dog. No, Tess thought, but today a dog certainly did my pussy. The Old Tess would not have approved of such a joke, but the New Tess thought it was pretty goddam funny. She barked a hoarse laugh and got walking again, moving to the other side of the road, where the lights from the roadhouse parking lot did not quite reach.

As she passed the far side of the building, she saw an old white van backed up to the loading dock. There were no arc sodiums on this side of The Stagger Inn, but the moonlight was enough to show her the skeleton pounding its cupcake drums. No wonder the van hadnt stopped to pick up the nail-studded road litter. The Zombie Bakers had been late for the load-in, and that wasnt good, because on Friday nights, The Stagger Inn was hopping with the bopping, rolling with the strolling, and reeling with the feeling.

Can your pussy do the dog? Tess asked, and pulled the filthy carpet remnant a little tighter around her neck. It was no mink stole, but on a cool October night, it was better than nothing. 14 -

When Tess got to the intersection of Stagg Road and Route 47, she saw something beautiful: a Gas amp; Dash with two pay telephones on the cinder-block wall between the restrooms.

She used the Womens first, and had to put a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry when her urine started to flow; it was as if someone had lit a book of matches in there. When she got up from the toilet, fresh tears were rolling down her cheeks. The water in the bowl was a pastel pink. She blotted herself-very gently-with a pad of toilet paper, then flushed. She would have taken another wad to fold into the crotch of her underwear, but of course she couldnt do that. The giant had taken her underpants as a souvenir.

You bastard, she said.

She paused with her hand on the doorknob, looking at the bruised, wide-eyed woman in the water-spotted metal mirror over the washbasin. Then she went out. 15 -

She discovered that using a pay telephone in this modern age had grown strangely difficult, even if you had your calling-card number memorized. The first phone she tried worked only one-way: she could hear the directory assistance operator, but the directory assistance operator couldnt hear her, and broke such connection as there was. The other phone was tilted askew on the cinder-block wall-not encouraging-but it worked. There was a steady annoying under-whine, but at least she and the operator could communicate. Only Tess had no pen or pencil. There were several writing implements in her purse, but of course her purse was gone.

Cant you just connect me? she asked the operator.

No, maam, you have to dial it yourself in order to utilize your credit card. The operator spoke in the voice of someone explaining the obvious to a stupid child. This didnt make Tess angry; she felt like a stupid child. Then she saw how dirty the cinder-block wall was. She told the operator to give her the number, and when it came, she wrote it in the dust with her finger.

Before she could start dialing, a truck pulled into the parking lot. Her heart launched itself into her throat with dizzying, acrobatic ease, and when two laughing boys in high school jackets got out and whipped into the store, she was glad it was up there. It blocked the scream that surely would have come out otherwise.

She felt the world trying to go away and leaned her head against the wall for a moment, gasping for breath. She closed her eyes. She saw the giant towering over her, hands in the pockets of his biballs, and opened her eyes again. She dialed the number written in dust on the wall.

She braced herself for an answering machine, or for a bored dispatcher telling her that they had no cars, of course they didnt, it was Friday night, were you born stupid, lady, or did you just grow that way? But the phone was answered on the second ring by a businesslike woman who identified herself as Andrea. She listened to Tess, and said they would send a car right out, her driver would be Manuel. Yes, she knew exactly where Tess was calling from, because they ran cars out to The Stagger Inn all the time.

Okay, but Im not there, Tess said. Im at the intersection about half a mile down from th-

Yes, maam, I have that, Andrea said. The Gas amp; Dash. Sometimes we go there, too. People often walk down and call if theyve had a little too much to drink. Itll probably be forty-five minutes, maybe even an hour.

Thats fine, Tess said. The tears were falling again. Tears of gratitude this time, although she told herself not to relax, because in stories like this the heroines hopes so often turned out to be false. Thats absolutely fine. Ill be around the corner by the pay telephones. And Ill be watching.

Now shell ask me if I had a little too much to drink. Because I probably sound that way.

But Andrea only wanted to know if she would be paying with cash or credit.

American Express. I should be in your computer.

Yes, maam, you are. Thank you for calling Royal Limousine, where every customer is treated like royalty. Andrea clicked off before Tess could say she was very welcome.

She started to hang up the phone, and then a man-him, its him -ran around the corner of the store and right at her. This time there was no chance of screaming; she was paralyzed with terror.

It was one of the teenage boys. He went past without looking at her and hooked a left into the Mens. The door slammed. A moment later she heard the enthusiastic, horselike sound of a young man voiding an awesomely healthy bladder.

Tess went down the side of the building and around back. There she stood beside a reeking Dumpster (no, she thought, Im not standing, Im lurking), waiting for the young man to finish and be gone. When he was, she walked back to the pay phones to watch the road. In spite of all the places where she hurt, her belly was rumbling with hunger. She had missed her dinner, had been too busy being raped and almost killed to eat. She would have been glad to have any of the snacks they sold in places like this-even some of those little nasty peanut butter crackers, so weirdly yellow, would have been a treat-but she had no money. Even if she had, she wouldnt have gone in there. She knew what kind of lights they had in roadside convenience stores like Gas amp; Dash, those bright and heartless fluorescents that made even healthy people look like they were suffering from pancreatic cancer. The clerk behind the counter would look at her bruised cheeks and forehead, her broken nose and her swollen lips, and he or she might not say anything, but Tess would see the widening of the eyes. And maybe a quickly suppressed twitch of the lips. Because, face it, people could think a beat-up woman was funny. Especially on a Friday night. Who tuned up on you, lady, and what did you do to deserve it? Wouldnt you come across after some guy spent his overtime on you?